BS: Shooting tragedies and guns

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 11:38 AM

Ok, now give me some proof that your opinion is more valuable than any other. A degree in psychoanalysis will do.

Can't you see that I was playing Devil's advocate?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 11:20 AM

"Trying to bait you", Kendall - not my intent at all. There's opinion, and then there's fact and the two are not necessarily equivalent.

However, I will honor your implied request and desist from attempting to have a rational discussion with you.

Bye Bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 10:03 AM

Greg F I feel like you are trying to bait me and that is irritating.

My personal opinion is, these "Bubbas" were probably picked on as kids, never won a fist fight and probably have small peckers.They are also probably cowards, Ok? happy now? That's just MY opinion, nothing more.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 09:40 AM

Watched LaPierre on Meet the Press........kept repeating the phrase, "guns are a tool." Actually LaPierre is a tool. First a tool of the gun lobby and also a tool as in dick. It is fair to say Wayne is a complete and total tool.

The GOP is lining up solidly against any real regulation changes. How nice. I'm sure they have good reasons. I figure what might be required here for a guy with an AR to break into the Republican caucus or the next GOP convention and shoot a hundred rounds around the place.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 09:37 AM

These people, for the most part, have inferiority complexes and think that if they have a bigger gun then everyone else that that will level the field for them... Real men don't need AR15s... Only washrag wusses...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 09:37 AM

I'm not qualified to label them paranoid, crazy or stupid;

perhaps not as a clinician, but I would think your background in law enforcement etc. would enable you to make a pretty accurate evaluation.


they have a different opinion from mine, thats all.

"That's All"?? Hardly.

With all due respect (and I mean that sincerely), that's a ridiculous statement. Stalin had a "different opinion" as well, as did Tim McVeigh. Past time to stop excusing ignorance, stupidity, and just plain bloody-mindedness & get on with the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 07:03 AM

Greg F I can't speak for others generally, but in this case, these gun nuts are afraid the government is going to take their guns and leave them vulnerable to something that they can't even explain.
I'm not qualified to label them paranoid, crazy or stupid; they have a different opinion from mine, thats all.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: theleveller
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 04:04 AM

"I personally am not afraid of my government, but I know plenty of people who are."

Even more reason to demand change. If the will is there, it can be done. In 1976, when I was a young man, I went to live in South Africa and I was appalled when I discovered what apartheid was all about. I got involved in anti-apartheid politics. The realists said: "What's the point? The government, along with the police and the army, has the country in an iron grip and the Afrikaanas will fight to the last man to keep their supremancy. Anyway, it's not your country so why bother?" After a couple of years I was forced to flee the country, leaving my job and most of my possessions. But things DID change. Lots of brave people both inside and outside the country made it happen. Many were imprisoned, tortured and killed but The Rainbow Nation became the reality. The status quo is not an inevitability - just go for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 11:34 PM

Actually, having belatedly read the article in question--which I recommend everybody to do soon--the article makes clear this is old advertising and acknowledges lots of people (Americans implicitly included) might find this advertising macabre-- whether it's from the 30's,, 40s , 50s, or 60's..

It seems to be needlessly looking for trouble to pick a fight with Spiegel on the basis of the article--which in the main is quite accurate, including the assertion that many attitudes were shaped partly by this advertising--along with Disney's Davy Crockett and the general Western TV craze, which also happened in the 50's.   Does anybody deny this? It would pay us to get our facts straight, rather than just lashing out, though that is admittedly a favorite Mudcat pursuit.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: number 6
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 11:15 PM

Most of those ads are from the 50's and 60's.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 10:56 PM

"1930's era advertising"

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 10:51 PM

"1930's-type advertising".   That's what you do when you're a really Left-leaning magazine.    Anybody to your Right is fair game, including distortion of current attitudes or smearing a whole country.    I daresay some Mudcatters might well be capable of attacking the US on exactly the same basis.

Having said that, I'm sure there are places in the US where a Winchester is still a very welcome Christmas present.

And I have to say I'm not against rifles anywhere near as much as against pistols, AK-47's etc.
I'd just like to see all the gun-owners show up for regular drill, to be part of the "well-regulated militia"--as the 2nd Amendment intended.

Now if the Spiegel headline had to do with delight of a young boy in getting a real Saturday Night Special for Christmas, we'd have more grounds for complaint.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 08:47 PM

On "Meet the Press" David Gregory several times tried to get LaPierre to give a direct answer to questions about what **laws** he would suggest to deal with the current problems. What Gregory got, of course, was an evasive dance and prepared, repetitious talking points which changed the subject and pontificated.

I tend to think it's kinda good to have that line of BS put on TV at that kind of length for everyone to see. His base will still toe the line, but more & more folks are seeing his crap for what it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 08:21 PM

We have suffered thru a 3 decade long PR assault on "government" by people who don't want laws and regulations to apply to them... Why??? Because these people are the cheaters, the polluters and the folks who make more $$$ if there isn't a strong government... Bottom line??? It all comes down to money...

It's no wonder that so many folks have fallen for the PR and Fox propaganda... It's all store bought PR and propaganda and it was worked just like the cheaters, polluters and crooks PR firms told them it would...

Money well spent...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 08:12 PM

I personally am not afraid of my government, but I know plenty of people who are.

Question is, Kendall WHY are they afraid of it, to what extent, are they having mental problems, or are they just ignorant?

I think that's all relevant.

I'm in the U.S. as well, and in the hirearchy of things I'm afraid of, the government doesn't even make the grade.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 07:48 PM

We can do it. That road is rough and rocky, but if enough of us band together and scare congress more than the NRA is scaring them it can be done. It's up to us and no one else.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: gnu
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 07:17 PM

So....

Where is the website?

Where is the petition?

Where are the balls?

USA... U Stand Alone. Pony up. If you do, we (many) will stand with with you for good gun laws in your country. Don't say you cannot do it. That is simply un-American... innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 07:13 PM

Greg F, Don asked who made THEM paranoid. Americans have been suspicious of a standing army from day one.
I use the word "WE" because I am an American. I personally am not afraid of my government, but I know plenty of people who are.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 06:38 PM

Wayne LaPierre thinking? Now there's a concept that's impossible to grasp. Bullshitting, yes. Bloviating, yes. Pontificating, yes. but thinking? please.

But Wayne ain't the problem. Its those 4 million NRA members with cold, dead brains.

Question is, when will the rest of us tell that 1.4% of the U.S. population to shove it?

Talk about the tail waving the dog......

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 06:26 PM

Simple Bobz!

There is no connection between his brain cell (singular) and his mouth.

If brains were dynamite, he wouldn't have enough to lift his hat in the air.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 06:21 PM

Saw Wayne LaPierre on "Meet the Press" this morning and this got not only doubled down but tripled down on his belief that gun violence has nothing to do with guns in any manner... I just don't get his thinking at all...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 06:03 PM

Kendall, who's this "we" you're talking about? And what is it that they don't trust their government to do or to not do? And which of Don's posts does your comment relate to?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 06:01 PM

Nice one, Bruce! Dreier's right on target (as it were)- way past time to stand up to the NRA bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 04:58 PM

Simple, Don; we don't trust our government.
I saw a bumper sticker that said, "We are making enemies faster than we can kill them."

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 04:57 PM

My point in my post about Der Spiegel is that they're reaching back to 1930s era advertising, which reflected 1930s social attitudes, and attempting to hold the present-day US accountable for them. That approach is as invalid as an American publication trying to hold present-day Germany accountable for the Hitler Youth Movement. The Germans, more than anyone else, should know that the excesses of the past belong in the past.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 04:40 PM

About a year or eighteen months ago somebody posted here that he intended to cycle across the USA, IIRC from West to East across the southern states.

Almost the first advice he received was that it would be dangerous to knock on a door to ask to fill up his water bottle, as he would risk being shot dead as a trespasser.

What does that say about a country whose citizens are in the main among the most friendly in the Western World?

Who made them so paranoid that all strangers are looked on with suspicion?

The NRA maybe, in its ceaseless quest to sell more guns for the arms manufacturers?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 04:30 PM

Also. BWL, Der Spiegel is pretty far left--about as far left as Mudcat, probably.   Similar attitude toward Israel, very environmentalist, not nationalist in the least. Militarism is anathema.

Germany in general had a huge revulsion to Hitlerism and anything remotely conncected.

1945 is often called das Jahre Null---Year Zero--i.e.   we are starting completely over.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: GUEST,999
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 04:07 PM

Peter Dreier about LaPierre/NRA

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 06:48 AM

Even as a no guns citizen of the UK, I have absolutely no problem with those who kill what they eat, or eat what they kill.

We no longer hsve wild animals in the way that the Americas have. What deer we have, for example, are owned by somebody and therefore not to be hunted without permission.

We also have no big predators capable of harming humans (though occasionally a herd of cows can inflict serious harm).

The only reason for gun ownership, except for farmers and landowners) would be to shoot people and we have agreed that this is not a productive activity, so we don't do it (as a rule).

When, as a lad of fourteen, I spent holidays with an uncle in Norfolk, who was kitchen gardener for a large estate, I used to shoot vermin using a double barreled twelve bore. It was a chore and I can't say I ever enjoyed it.

Rifles don't generally feature in UK life, since you are almost never in a position where there are no other people within range even of a .22 short.

I did shoot targets with my father who was a Bisley competitor, using a Lee Enfield .303, which was fun, but that gun resided at the club.

The point of all this is that I am not anti gun. Just anti indiscriminate and uncontrolled guns which are inappropriate for any legal civilian use.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 23 Dec 12 - 05:42 AM

I had a BB gun at the age of 12.I shot a pigeon and it was swept away in the falls. That's bothered me ever since.
I got a double barrel 16 gauge shotgun at 16. Never shot anything but game. Got a nice 14 point buck on Thanksgiving day 1950. That was near the end of the "Rut" and he was tougher than a woodpeckers beak. I couldn't cut the gravy.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: number 6
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 11:35 PM

Bee_dubya .... Germany has never been obsessed with guns. Even during the Third Reich era ... though hunting is part of the Bavarian spirit the National Socialist Government would certainly have not wanted the ordinary citizens having a collection of guns in their homes. As per the German youth, aside from promoting antisemitism it was not much unlike the Boy Scout movement, in that both promotes patriotism, and nationalistic pride.

BTW, I never saw ads such as those.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: PHJim
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 11:25 PM

An Opinion On Gun Control

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: number 6
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 11:21 PM

Ebbie .... I'm a Canuck. Fourth generation on my father's side, First generation on my mother's side. Spent my childhood summer's up on the shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario. In those days Canada was still pretty much a rural country.Farming, hunting, fishing and even fur trapping was a way of life. As a kid, like every other kid at the time I owned a daisy bb gun. My father was a career officer in the Canadian military. I do recall a couple of my uncles going hunting, though my father always refrained from participating. Besides my bb gun and my father's service revolver there were no other guns in the house.

I now live in the province of New Brunswick were hunting is a given right. Many people I know here do hunt, and do own hunting rifles. I have no qualms about them doing so, and I respect their right to hunt.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:57 PM

What I meant, gnu, is that as a Canadian, 6's heritage is not of stags and boars being for only 'blue bloods'.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:38 PM

Oh, and...

...600...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:37 PM

Heck, when I was a teenager BB gun wars were cool... Yeah, you'd get a stinger now and then but no one ever had their eye shot out like the adults said would happen... I mean, I recall one particular such BB gun battle/war that lasted well over a week until a big rain storm ended it... It was over a big mound of dirt that had been pushed up by bulldozers clearing for e new housing development... No big deal... Everyone got shot at least once... Me??? I think about three or four times... All good fun...

What ain't fun is when people use real guns on one another... That is messed up...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: gnu
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:25 PM

sIx is a Canuck, Ebbie. Damn fine Canuck at that. What does that matter along you train of thought?

Excuse me for not understanding.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:22 PM

While I'd never defend the practice of pitching BB guns at 13-year-olds, I think it's a bit ironic that Der Spiegel, of all the publications in the world, would get so incensed over the subject. After all, during the same decade those ads ran in US magazines, Der Spiegel's homeland was busy enrolling its own 13-year-olds in Hitler Youth Groups.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:04 PM

Sorry- it got away from me. I want to complete my thought.

I realize the short-sightedness and ignorance of their actions but it was what it was.

My further thought:

How long has it been since there was untouched wilderness in the UK?

(It just occurred to me that I think you are Canadian. Well, never mind.)

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: gnu
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:02 PM

Call it what you will, Bobert, et al. When a match is made in heaven, it's a blessing. Sappy? Yeah. True? Most definitely! Still brings a smile to me eye. Maybe this thread has some redeeming thread drift! Made me smile, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 10:01 PM

Number 6, I do know what you mean- Americans' approach to a lot of things is often incomprehensible to others. I too grew up with rifles and enjoyed target shooting. I never fired anything but a 22 rifle but my brothers had a 30.06 and a 30.30, and at one time my oldest brother had a pistol. Gun safety was a big deal in our family but I don't remember anyone ever being chided over it; I don't remember anyone ever abusing them.

This country's attitude toward hunting is a fairly pragmatic one. We are aware that 'harvesting' deer, for instance, is a means of keeping the herds healthy. I have no idea how Canada or the rest of the world keep unrestrained herds from starving.

We are also aware that the average person who is anti-hunting anything is not a vegetarian; he or she just objects to anyone seeing an animal being killed for food.

Maybe UKers have been trained to think of deer as belonging only to the 'blue bloods'? I dunno.

A good many blue bloods in your country -as well as ours- have for generations gone on hunting safaris- and many a castle and manor sports wall-mounted heads as evidence. Not just for food either; there isn't much demand for lion or tiger dinners.

I suppose it is not too big a leap to go from hunting for food and sport to accept that guns are also for protection, not only from wild animals but also from the outlaws amongst us.

There is one further impetus that affects Americans - within our grandparents' and great-grandparents' memory this was a wild country. In 1918 my father's family moved to Wisconsin and broke up ground that had never been put to the plow; they routinely and relentlessly eradicated the 'varmints' that threatened their crops and animals.

Mind you, I reali

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 09:10 PM

Back in the holler we called 'um "shotgun weddin's"...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 08:58 PM

We had a military wedding...well, there were guns there..

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Amos
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 08:11 PM

One English woman liked me so much she insisted I marry her.

Skipper, was that because you had gotten her into trouble, or because she was trying to keep you out of it?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Ed T
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 08:04 PM

Does this sound familar to some statemwnts last week?


Sound familiar?

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 07:49 PM

Forget the table, Kendall - as I said in my first post.

My question was why you didn't tell the jackass what you thought of the NRA and his and their nonsense.

Someone needs to stand up against these idiots - and you had a perfect opportunity.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: kendall
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 07:13 PM

The reason I didn't upset the NRA table is because the last guy who did that ended up nailed to a cross.

I didn't go to Cabelas for me, I went for someone who lives 90 miles from that store, and it was not for a gun or ammo.

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: number 6
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 06:57 PM

Ebbie ... I'm trying to understand American culture ... I'm trying ... even after seeing those ads up in that Der Spiegel article

biLL ... :)

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: number 6
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 06:50 PM

from Der Speigel ...

Gee Dad ... A Winchester!

I especially like the ad for King Air rifles ... "gives a boy an air of manliness, makes him alert, self confident and resolute ... makes him a leader in the business world"

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Shooting tragedies and guns
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 04:58 PM

No parental "negligence" involved, gnu - just criminal stupidity of the type that supports the NRA. (NB: - I'm arecovering, ex-NRA member)

If the story is to be believed, mom & dad GAVE him the pistol & sent him off to school.

Expect more of the same from these types of "we need more guns in our schools" morons.